Students in Saudi Arabia are hacking into websites, but there is no need to panic, it's all for a good cause. The Excellence Center for Information Security at King Saud University has given the opportunity to 37 students, academics and employees, with top notch computer skills, to hack into mock computers systems so that the methods of cyber attackers can be studied and countered. The group was given the opportunity to hack the mock computer systems, set by a computer systems engineer, on Wednesday morning at a research workshop held on information security. The results of the research will be passed onto government and other private companies. Dr. Khaled Bin Sulaiman Al-Ghathbar, Director of the center said: “This does not mean we encourage hacking nor do we train people in it. We are simply providing the opportunity for this group of people to discover the loopholes that allow hackers to penetrate computer systems and access secret information. We encourage defensive methods to maintain information security.” Al-Ghathbar said that 500 websites were hacked in the Kingdom in 2009. He said the Kingdom is ninth in the world with regard to the amount of cyber attacks. In 2008, in the United States alone, hackers stole from 285 million financial accounts. “This is an indication that the volume of electronic theft is increasing greatly,” he warned. The center has been supported by Prince Muqrin Bin Abdul Aziz, Chief of General Intelligence.
